By now the hive mind has undoubtedly found your little corner of the Internet and informed you of the latest little food flap. The International Journal of Biological Sciences published a study, which is apparently (says Marion Nestle) full of inscrutable sciency sort of talk, but which concludes by claiming that certain “GM maize varieties induce a state of hepatorenal toxicity”. In other words, they warn that certain of Monsanto’s products might make you sick.
I didn’t take much notice of this story at first, because these things seem to pop up every few months, and usually get ignored. But this one had legs. It found me first by way of Reddit and then started hitting me from all angles. It even got a write up in the Fast Company blog in an article entitled, “Is Your Morning Cereal Damaging Your Liver?” Wow. If that’s not bad press, what is?
After more than a year of watching food stories roll by, I think I’m beginning to notice a wee bit of a pattern. Every time a study like this hits the blogosphere the reaction is predictable and boringly partisan. Democrats trumpet the news, while Republicans say it’s a crap study in a crap journal funded by liberals. We love a good stereotype, don’t we?
The two main criticisms of this study, which sound familiar to me from past studies, are discussed in a blog post on Discover Magazine, pointed out to me by fellow twitterer, @MikeHowie (thanks, Mike!). First criticism: the study is funded by Greenpeace. Second criticism: the journal in which it is published is crap.
Now I’ve hugged a tree or two in my time, but I have no great love for Greenpeace. It may have started out well enough, but seems to have morphed into a self-perpetuating fundraising machine. Nevertheless, I fail to see why a study funded by Greenpeace is more questionable than a study funded by Monsanto, when many millions of dollars ride on whether or not Monsanto’s products are deemed safe. Self-policing is a regulatory absurdity which every good conservative ought to oppose.
As to the second point, well, I wanted to know more. Is this a fake, politically motivated journal? I went to the website of the International Journal of Biological Sciences and had a look at its editorial board. If you click on the link, you’ll see a long line of academics from institutions like Texas A&M, UCLA, the University of Utah, and more. Hmm, not quite Ivy League, but doesn’t look fake either.
What to make of all of this? If you like to err on the side of caution when it comes to your food supply, it seems as though GM products and GM/herbicide/pesticide combo products do deserve some more rigorous, independent scrutiny. It’s hard to imagine a good reason for anyone–Republican or Democrat–to be opposed to that, unless they happen to be Monsanto shareholders or employees.
One positive sign that the Big M is starting to get a bit more of the right kind of attention is yesterday’s announcement that the U.S. Justice Department has opened a formal antitrust investigation. It won’t have any impact on what has become an unsupervised gallop towards a brave new world of biotechnology for profit, but it’s a start.
